Barn Board Wall Art

The wall above the sofa in our living room has been bare for years for two reasons: our sofa is very long and we have never found a piece of art long enough to fill the space (for a reasonable price), and my husband and I have very different ideas about what to hang on the walls of our home (it is a miracle we have anything hanging to be honest). All that to say, we were looking at this blank, bare wall for a really long time.

But then inspiration struck. Steve can't remember where he saw the idea - a magazine, a website, Pinterest - but the idea was presented to find some barn board and use it to make a piece of wall decor. Sounded like a unique solution to our bare wall problem, so we decided to give it a try.

We found the barn board at a local shop that specializes in reclaimed materials from old barns, factories, homes...it is a really neat place to wander through.

We selected barn boards in varying widths and brought them home. The first step was to play around with different arrangements: where to put each width of board, and how to space out the knots and imperfections in the wood. Notice that the end on the left is uneven. We played around for quite a while making sure that the imperfections were randomly spaced across the piece knowing we could just cut everything down to the final size once it was secured together.

Once we had the design finalized we needed to attach the boards together. To do this we cut small pieces of wood to size and laid them across the back of the barn board.

We glued and then screwed them in place and they, in cooperation with the tongue and groove edges on the barn board itself, held everything together quite nicely.

Once everything was secured in place, we cut the ends of our piece even in order to arrive at our final dimensions of 6" x 2". Sorry for the lack of pictures for this part, it was really a two person job with Steve manning the circular saw and me holding the wood in place. 

Lastly we added these little hooks to the inside edge of the end support bars, and ran some heavy duty hanging wire between them.

Here you can see everything. The three support bars running the width of the piece and holding everything together, the ends of the piece cut even, and the hanging wire strung between the two end support bars.

Then we hung our barn board on the wall above our sofa.

And we are so happy with how it turned out. It fills the space perfectly, yet does not compete with anything else in the room. The wood is the perfect color too, a little blue-grey which picks up on the pillows on the sofa.

I have a few ides on how to spice it up a bit - maybe a bit of granny bunting, some Christmas bunting, a few colorful plates...but for now, I am thrilled with the warmth and texture that it adds to the room.